US20230408927A1 - Apparatus and method of laser interference lithography - Google Patents

Apparatus and method of laser interference lithography Download PDF

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Publication number
US20230408927A1
US20230408927A1 US18/250,542 US202118250542A US2023408927A1 US 20230408927 A1 US20230408927 A1 US 20230408927A1 US 202118250542 A US202118250542 A US 202118250542A US 2023408927 A1 US2023408927 A1 US 2023408927A1
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Prior art keywords
light field
field distribution
interference
distribution
pattern
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Wendi Li
Zhuofei GAN
Siyi MIN
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University of Hong Kong HKU
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University of Hong Kong HKU
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Assigned to THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG reassignment THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: GAN, Zhuofei, LI, WENDI, MIN, Siyi
Publication of US20230408927A1 publication Critical patent/US20230408927A1/en
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    • G—PHYSICS
    • G03—PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY
    • G03F—PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES, e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
    • G03F7/00—Photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces, e.g. printing surfaces; Materials therefor, e.g. comprising photoresists; Apparatus specially adapted therefor
    • G03F7/70—Microphotolithographic exposure; Apparatus therefor
    • G03F7/70408—Interferometric lithography; Holographic lithography; Self-imaging lithography, e.g. utilizing the Talbot effect
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G03—PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY
    • G03F—PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES, e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
    • G03F7/00—Photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces, e.g. printing surfaces; Materials therefor, e.g. comprising photoresists; Apparatus specially adapted therefor
    • G03F7/20—Exposure; Apparatus therefor
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G03—PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY
    • G03F—PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES, e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
    • G03F7/00—Photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces, e.g. printing surfaces; Materials therefor, e.g. comprising photoresists; Apparatus specially adapted therefor
    • G03F7/70—Microphotolithographic exposure; Apparatus therefor
    • G03F7/70058—Mask illumination systems
    • G03F7/70091—Illumination settings, i.e. intensity distribution in the pupil plane or angular distribution in the field plane; On-axis or off-axis settings, e.g. annular, dipole or quadrupole settings; Partial coherence control, i.e. sigma or numerical aperture [NA]
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G03—PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY
    • G03F—PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES, e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
    • G03F7/00—Photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces, e.g. printing surfaces; Materials therefor, e.g. comprising photoresists; Apparatus specially adapted therefor
    • G03F7/70—Microphotolithographic exposure; Apparatus therefor
    • G03F7/70058—Mask illumination systems
    • G03F7/70133—Measurement of illumination distribution, in pupil plane or field plane
    • G—PHYSICS
    • G03—PHOTOGRAPHY; CINEMATOGRAPHY; ANALOGOUS TECHNIQUES USING WAVES OTHER THAN OPTICAL WAVES; ELECTROGRAPHY; HOLOGRAPHY
    • G03F—PHOTOMECHANICAL PRODUCTION OF TEXTURED OR PATTERNED SURFACES, e.g. FOR PRINTING, FOR PROCESSING OF SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES; MATERIALS THEREFOR; ORIGINALS THEREFOR; APPARATUS SPECIALLY ADAPTED THEREFOR
    • G03F7/00—Photomechanical, e.g. photolithographic, production of textured or patterned surfaces, e.g. printing surfaces; Materials therefor, e.g. comprising photoresists; Apparatus specially adapted therefor
    • G03F7/70—Microphotolithographic exposure; Apparatus therefor
    • G03F7/70058—Mask illumination systems
    • G03F7/70208—Multiple illumination paths, e.g. radiation distribution devices, microlens illumination systems, multiplexers or demultiplexers for single or multiple projection systems

Definitions

  • the present disclosure relates to a field of lithography, and in particular, to an apparatus and a method of laser interference lithography.
  • Interferometric lithography is a technique for patterning an array of sub-micron structures that cover a large area.
  • the interference of two or more beams of coherent light waves is recorded onto a photoresist to produce a plurality of regular periodic patterns of structures, including gratings, holes, pillars, cones, and lattices.
  • a coherent laser beam is divided into two or more beams, and then combined and overlapped in a certain region, a regular light intensity pattern of a grating or light spot may be formed.
  • a photoresist material is exposed through these light intensity patterns, and an interference pattern is recorded after development.
  • the lithography technique allows for maskless patterning of a large area substrate using a shorter exposure time.
  • Interference lithography may generate periodic nanostructures on a large area with high productivity and low cost, and thus plays an important role in emerging energy, sensing, luminescence, and other applications.
  • interference lithography may generate a periodic pattern through two different solutions, namely, Lloyd mirror structure and dual-beam holographic imaging structure.
  • interference lithography when using interference lithography to prepare a periodic nano pattern, there is often a problem that a duty cycle of a photoresist pattern exposed to an interference pattern is uneven due to an uneven exposure field of a light source used, thereby reducing a process accuracy of a product.
  • Such requirements are often difficult to obtain by an exposure light field of interference lithography. Therefore, it is difficult to meet such requirements for interference lithography equipment with high productivity and low cost.
  • the objective of the present disclosure is to solve at least some or all of the above-mentioned problems.
  • An aspect of the present disclosure provides an apparatus of laser interference lithography, including: a dual-beam or multi-beam laser interference lithography device configured to perform an interference exposure on a wafer coated with a photoresist; a floodlight source having a patternable light field distribution and configured to perform a patterned flood exposure on the interference-exposed wafer; and a controller configured to: determine a first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer; determine a light field distribution of the floodlight source as a second light field distribution based on the first light field distribution, an expected pattern distribution, and parameters of the floodlight source; and pattern the light field distribution of the floodlight source based on the second light field distribution, and control the floodlight source having the patterned light field distribution to perform the patterned flood exposure on the interference-exposed wafer, so as to form the expected pattern distribution in the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the floodlight source further includes a defocusing module configured to defocus light emitted by the floodlight source to form a flooded blurred spot.
  • the floodlight source further includes a motor configured to move the floodlight source slightly to form a flooded blurred spot.
  • the floodlight source further includes a light field patterning module, wherein the controller is further configured to pattern the light field distribution of the floodlight source via the light field patterning module into the second light field distribution.
  • the apparatus of laser interference lithography further includes a developing unit configured to develop the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the first light field distribution is an ideal interference pattern
  • the second light field distribution is a stepped distribution
  • the method of laser interference lithography further includes: performing a development processing on the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the determining a first light field distribution includes: developing an interference-exposed sample; detecting a profile of the developed wafer through a scanning electron microscope; and determining the first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer based on the detected profile.
  • the determining the second light field distribution may include: determining the second light field distribution in response to determining the expected pattern distribution to be a pattern distribution having a spatially modulated duty cycle, so that the pattern distribution having the spatially modulated duty cycle is formed in the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the first light field distribution is an ideal interference pattern
  • the second light field distribution is a uniform distribution
  • the first light field distribution is an ideal interference pattern
  • the second light field distribution is a stepped distribution
  • FIG. 2 A to FIG. 2 C show a conceptual schematic diagram of an apparatus of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • FIG. 3 shows an architecture diagram of an apparatus of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of a method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • FIG. 5 shows a flowchart of a flood exposure process according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • FIG. 7 shows a sample diagram of a pattern having a spatially modulated duty cycle fabricated on a 3-inch sample using an apparatus and a method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • the present disclosure proposes using a patterned flood exposure after an interference exposure to compensate for a process error in manufacturing a device caused by an uneven light field of interference exposure, e.g., a problem of an uneven duty cycle of a periodic device.
  • a patterned flood exposure, or flood exposure for short may be performed using a floodlight source with an emission wavelength within a sensitive wavelength range of the photoresist, to compensate for the uneven light field of interference exposure.
  • the light field distribution of the floodlight source may be designed, so that a cumulative exposure dose distribution in the flood-exposed wafer may exhibit a pattern having a uniform duty cycle, as shown in FIG. 2 C .
  • the floodlight source 320 may have a patternable light field distribution and be configured to perform the patterned flood exposure on the interference-exposed wafer, i.e., to expose the wafer using a patterned flooded light spot.
  • the floodlight source 320 may include a defocusing module, wherein the defocusing module may be implemented by a defocusing optical device and configured to defocus light (e.g., out of focus) emitted by the floodlight source to form a flooded blurred spot.
  • the floodlight source 320 may optionally include a motor configured to move the floodlight source slightly to form a flooded fuzzy spot.
  • the controller 330 may be implemented as one or more processing modules.
  • the one or more processing modules may determine the first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer.
  • the determining the first light field distribution may include developing an interference-exposed sample using a developing device; detecting a profile of the developed wafer through a detection instrument such as a scanning electron microscope; and determining the first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer based on the detected profile.
  • the apparatus of laser interference lithography may additionally include a developing unit configured to develop the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the above-mentioned components may be formed discretely or integrated into a system.
  • the above-mentioned components may also be divided into a plurality of components or combined into one or more components without affecting the implementation of the present disclosure.
  • FIG. 4 shows a flowchart of a method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • the method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may generally include the following operations: in operation S 410 , an interference exposure is performed on a wafer coated with photoresist; in operation S 420 , patterned flood exposure is performed on the interference-exposed wafer.
  • a homogenization treatment may be additionally performed to evenly coat the photoresist.
  • the method of laser interference lithography may also include performing a development processing, that is, performing the development processing on the flood-exposed wafer to ultimately provide the expected lithographic pattern.
  • the first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer is determined.
  • the determining the first light field distribution may include: developing an interference-exposed sample using a developing device; detecting a profile of the developed wafer through a detection instrument such as a scanning electron microscope; and determining the first light field distribution in the interference-exposed wafer based on the detected profile.
  • a light field distribution of the floodlight source is determined as a second light field distribution based on the first light field distribution, an expected pattern distribution, and parameters of the floodlight source used for the floodlight exposure.
  • the determining the second light field distribution includes applying a higher flood exposure dose at a location with a smaller first light field distribution (i.e., an interference exposure dose is small), and applying a lower flood exposure dose at a location with a larger first light field distribution (i.e., an interference exposure dose is large).
  • the second light field distribution may be determined such that the pattern distribution having a spatially modulated duty cycle is formed in the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the light field distribution of the floodlight source is patterned based on the second light field distribution, and the floodlight source having the patterned light field distribution is controlled to perform patterned flood exposure on the interference-exposed wafer, so as to form the expected pattern distribution in the flood-exposed wafer.
  • the light field distribution of the floodlight source may be patterned via the light field patterning module into the second light field distribution.
  • the method of laser interference lithography compensates for the interference exposure by using the flood exposure, that is, determining the light field distribution of the floodlight source based on the first light field distribution obtained after the interference exposure, and performing flood exposure compensation based on this, which may achieve any given lithography pattern, and the like, i.e., being able to controllably provide the expected lithography pattern with high accuracy, without significantly increasing the complexity and manufacturing cost of the device.
  • the interference lithography pattern formed by using the apparatus and method shown in exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure may be may be a one-dimensional grating structure, or a two-dimensional lattice, hole array, and other structures.
  • a distributed feedback (DFB) laser a field emission display (FED), a liquid crystal display (LCD), an advanced data storage application, a grating, a metric, and a Moth-Eye sub wavelength structure (SWS), and the like.
  • DFB distributed feedback
  • FED field emission display
  • LCD liquid crystal display
  • SWS Moth-Eye sub wavelength structure
  • FIG. 6 to FIG. 11 show examples of applying the method and apparatus according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, respectively.
  • FIG. 6 shows a grating-like structure having a period of, for example, 1 ⁇ m formed using an apparatus and a method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • an exposure dose of the interference pattern is gradually increased in a step of 4.6 mJ/cm 2 from 27.6 mJ/cm 2 to 55.2 mJ/cm 2
  • the exposure dose of the floodlight source is gradually increased from 0 mJ/cm 2 to 13.2 mJ/cm 2 .
  • FIG. 7 and FIG. 8 show schematic diagrams of performing a secondary exposure using a dual-beam or multi-beam laser interference lithography device having an ideal interference pattern and a floodlight source having a patterned distribution.
  • FIG. 7 shows a sample diagram of a pattern having a spatially modulated duty cycle fabricated on a 3-inch sample using an apparatus and a method of laser interference lithography according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, and electron microscope scanning diagrams of positions corresponding to a background, a letter “H”, a letter “K”, and a letter “U” on the 3-inch sample, respectively.
  • the period of the grating-like structure on the wafer is 600 nm, but four line-widths exist.
  • a line width of the grating-like structure located in the background is 250 nm
  • a line width of the grating-like structure located at the letter “H” is 190 nm
  • a line width of the grating-like structure located at the letter “K” is 140 nm
  • a line width of the grating-like structure located at the letter “U” is 110 nm.
  • FIG. 8 shows an example of obtaining a grating-like structure having uniform line width on a large size wafer using a method and apparatus according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure.
  • a distribution of the interference pattern on the wafer may deviate from the ideal interference pattern due to various reasons such as a larger size of the wafer or a performance of the interference light source. Therefore, it is possible to cause a resulting grating-like structure to have an uneven line width.
  • a patterned floodlight source may be used to perform the secondary exposure for compensation.
  • figure a in FIG. 8 shows a schematic diagram of performing lithography on a large size wafer (e.g., 4-inch) using only interferometric holography, and its electron microscope scanning images (figure (a1) to figure (a4)) fully demonstrate that a width of the fabricated grating-like structure is widened from 127 nm to 270 nm.
  • figure b shows a schematic diagram of performing lithography on a large size wafer using a lithography method according to exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure, and its electron microscope scanning diagrams (figure (b1) to figure (b4) fully demonstrate that a width of the fabricated grating-like structure is basically maintained at 127 nm.
  • Figure c and figure d show a line width and line width roughness of a grating-like structure on a 4-inch wafer as a function of position, respectively.
  • each block in the flowcharts or block diagrams may represent a module, program segment, or portion of code, which contains one or more executable instructions for implementing the specified logical function.

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CN202011282106.7A CN114509916B (zh) 2020-11-16 2020-11-16 激光干涉光刻设备和方法
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US6420101B1 (en) * 2000-06-21 2002-07-16 Infineon Technologies A G Method of reducing post-development defects in and around openings formed in photoresist by use of non-patterned exposure
KR100687858B1 (ko) * 2000-12-29 2007-02-27 주식회사 하이닉스반도체 반도체소자의 패터닝 방법
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CN116472496A (zh) 2023-07-21
CN114509916B (zh) 2024-03-08

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